


Christmas Eve

by Erica_T



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy/Steve Holiday Fic/Art Exchange, Developing Relationship, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 13:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3121685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erica_T/pseuds/Erica_T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve returns to the Tower on Christmas Eve, and finds Darcy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Eve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lifelover1989](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lifelover1989/gifts).



> For lifelover1989 who prompted 
> 
> 1) pregnant Darcy and Steve's Christmas together
> 
> 2) too much snow for Darcy
> 
> 3) Steve misses Christmas due to a mission
> 
>  
> 
> Number three was the one that wrote itself out, but It turned into Steve 'almost' misses Christmas, I hope you like it! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve

Steve returned to the Tower after the latest lead on Bucky they’d received had only led to a HYDRA group that was tougher than the others they’d come across. 

He was sore and he was tired, and if he was willing to admit it, he was a little upset, so he almost missed that he wasn’t alone on the common floors until a door slammed in the kitchen.

Suddenly hyperaware, he advanced in to the room on silent feet, and only relaxed when the occupant of the kitchen turned enough for him to recognize her. 

Darcy Lewis had come to New York with Thor’s Jane Foster. After London, Tony had extended the scientist an invitation to come and work for Stark Industries, and the unlimited funding had been very attractive. Originally, the invitation had been intended only for Dr. Foster, however she had been very unwilling to accept it unless room was made somewhere for the intern that she’d had with her for the previous two years. Pepper had looked over her qualifications and had promptly hired her as her personal assistant.  
In the months that she’d been there, Steve had met her a handful of times when he was in residence, and he liked her well enough. Truth told, he found her to extremely attractive, and she was very friendly. She always called him ‘Steve’, and she always had a smile for him whenever he saw her. He was not opposed to any opportunity to get to know her better. But as far as he was aware she had her own apartment in the Tower and didn’t normally frequent the common floors. 

“What are you doing here?” He asked before he could stop himself, the words a little sharper and a little louder than he intended.

She shrieked, and the pan full of cookies that she was moving from the oven to the counter landed with a loud crash. 

“Jesus H. fucking Christ! Steve! Don’t DO that! I knew that New York was going to be bad for my health, but I was thinking more like smog, insane drivers and muggings, not being scared out of my pants by the Freaking Avengers. Do the assassin twins teach classes in sneaking up on people without making noise, because if they do, I’m swapping out my business accounting course.” 

Steve stared at her while she ranted at him, arms and hands flailing even as she went back to transferring the thankfully unharmed cookies onto a cooling rack. He probably should have been focusing more on what she was saying, but he was far more distracted by the expanse of leg that was showing from underneath her shirt. Indeed, she seemed to only be wearing an oversized t-shirt – with his shield on it.

“You’re not wearing pants.” He said, stupidly. She stopped and blinked at him.

“Shows what you know.” She grumbled, and yanked up the hem, revealing a tiny pair of shorts. They were decked out with depictions of Mjölnir. He blinked and shook his head.

“Right…I’m sorry that I scared you.” 

She dropped her shirt and offered him a shy smile. 

“S’okay. I’ll live I’m sure. The shit that Stark puts me through is far worse. This was tame in comparison to having the top half of one of his suits suddenly come to life and start taking swings at me. Anyway… to answer your question, I’m up here because I ran out of sugar at my place, and all stores are closed. Nobody else is here, so I figured it would be okay to come borrow some. Then this kitchen also happens to be far superior to mine, JARVIS said it was fine for me to use it.” 

She looked closely at him, frowning.

“No offense, but you look like death. Are you okay?” 

He shrugged, wincing at the way the movement pulled at sore muscles and still raw wounds. Some of his injuries had started to heal, but it would probably be morning before he was back to normal. 

“I’m fine, just a few scrapes. We ran into a little trouble”

Suddenly she was standing right in front of him. He’d have been hard pressed to track her movements even if he wasn’t exhausted, she moved so fast. One moment she was at  
the counter, and the next she was turning him this way and that. 

“Jesus…Steve, what did you do to yourself? The only reason your uniform is still attached to your person is because it’s stuck on with dried blood.” She shuddered slightly, and he didn’t blame her, he knew that it was all his own blood. 

He shrugged again and heard her hiss on his behalf. 

“Like I said, we ran into a little trouble.” 

“Uh…this,” she waved her hand at his back, “is more than a little trouble.” 

“This HYDRA group hit us back a little harder than some of that we’ve come across, that’s all.”

“Uh huh.” Darcy tugged on his arm and started to herd him back toward the elevators. “C’mon, there isn’t going to be anyone in medical tonight, but I’ve got a kit at my place and Natasha’s been teaching me the basics of front line first aid.”

Half of him wanted very badly to go with her and let her take care of him, it had been a long time since anyone had done that. The other half wasn’t sure that being alone with her in her apartment was such a good idea, and he tried, half-heartedly, to resist her pull. 

“I’ll be alright by morning.” He protested. She stopped and the look that she pinned him with was equal parts firm and sad. It was the latter that further softened his resolve before she said anything else. It was her words though, that made him follow her down to her rooms feeling a little like a lost puppy. 

“That’s tomorrow, Steve. Who’s going to look after you until then?”

* * *

He noticed the tree when she went into her bathroom to fetch her first aid kit. He blinked, taking in the decoration in the corner of her living room and the quiet sound of Christmas carols playing from hidden speakers. 

“Is it Christmas?” He asked when she came back into the room. She paused, the large box in her hands half open as she gave him an incredulous look. 

“Uh…yes, it’s Christmas. How long have you been out there?” 

He looked back at her tree and sat slowly on her sofa, thinking hard. 

“I can’t remember the last time I looked at a calendar…it hasn’t been important, finding Bucky has been my priority. I could tell that the weather was changing, but…I didn’t realize that it was December already.”

If it was possible, she looked even sadder than she had before. 

“Oh…well, it’s actually Christmas Eve…at least for another three hours.” She came around and sat down next to him, rifling through the box noisily. 

He blinked again and let that percolate through his brain. Christmas Eve, and she was going to spend it patching him up? 

“I must be interrupting…” He went to stand, but she pulled him back down onto the sofa with a surprisingly strong grip. 

“Don’t even. If I had anywhere else to be, I’d already be there. Now, JARVIS, new tunes please, let’s have TSO, Christmas Eve and Other Stories.”  
The music changed in the background, and Darcy eyed his uniform top critically.

“That’s going to have to come off, but it’s definitely going to need a little help, how long have you been wearing that?” 

Steve grimaced.

“I don’t think you want to know the answer to that.” 

“Ew. Okay, let me have a look....” He felt her fingers brush against his back where he knew that the fabric of his uniform was stuck to his skin and sucked in a breath. Her fingers disappeared with a jerk. 

“Sorry. That’s pretty stuck on there. It’ll hurt like a mother fucker if you just pull it off. I’m going to get a wet towel, if we soak the fabric a bit, it’ll loosen up.”  
She disappeared and reappeared in moments carrying a wet bath towel.

“This should also help clean out any junk that’s still in your back. I know you’re supposed to be immune to plebeian things like infections, but I imagine that it’s still uncomfortable. Hold still.” 

With that, she pressed the wet towel directly to his back, and he sucked in a sharp breath at the sting of the warm water hitting his wounds.

“Shit! I’m sorry! I should have said something….”

“No, it’s okay, it’s just a surprise…”

“I’m still sorry….I’m not exactly Florence Nightingale.”

“It’s fine…honest. I’ve had much worse.”

“I guess the actual front lines were a little scary…” She mused quietly, and he nodded. 

“That…and Bucky used to patch me up when we were kids, so my ma wouldn’t have a heart attack next time she saw me…his bedside manner left a little to be desired.” As much as the memory made him ache a little, he grinned and looked down at her sitting behind him. “On the plus side, you are leagues ahead of Natasha.” 

He was rewarded by Darcy giggling behind him as she smoothed the towel over the expanse of his back. 

“Yeah…she’s kind of a ‘rip it off all at once’ sort of caregiver, isn’t she?” 

“She’s not gentle, no. I heard that Barton won’t let her come near him anymore.” 

“She’s a good teacher though.” 

“Yes…she is.” 

Her hands were warmer now than the towel, and they were gentle little things roving over his back. If it wasn’t for the still sharp sting of his wounds, he could almost imagine that  
they were doing something a bit more…intimate. 

He heard her mutter something under her breath that he didn’t quite catch, and he turned a bit to ask her about it. She was kneeling behind him to get a better angle on his back, and he noticed then that she was small in general. She seemed…bigger, when she was out and about in the Tower, laying down Pepper’s law and being herself. Not that she wasn’t being herself now, it was more that this was a softer side of Darcy Lewis that he hadn’t encountered before. He wasn’t sure if anyone had. 

She peeled the towel away and he already felt better. His skin didn’t feel nearly as tight, and it was easier to move. Her fingers ghosted over his back and it almost made him shiver. 

“Right…let’s get this off. I hope someone’s going to sew you a new one of these.” 

He laughed a bit at that and shook his head.

“Don’t know about that. I think all the SHIELD tailors were actually HYDRA. It’s the only way to explain all the spandex.” 

She snorted and he heard her rummaging around in her kit. 

“Maybe. They could have also just been dirty old women getting their jollies out on unsuspecting superheroes.” Her hands returned to his back, reaching for the edges of the uniform top and easing it up. 

He chuckled and then hissed when the top caught against one particularly rough spot on his back. 

“Oh…I’m so sorry, that wasn’t as loose as I thought…geez…Steve….” 

With the top now off completely, she was looking at all of the damage to his back, and he was sure that it wasn’t a pretty sight. It had probably been worse a few hours ago, but he wouldn’t delude himself that it looked fantastic now. 

Arms wrapped around his shoulders carefully, and Darcy pressed a small kiss to his cheek. The contact probably shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. 

“I’m sorry.” She said quietly.

“It’s not your fault.” 

“I know…but you’re out there doing all of this, and I don’t think that anybody is really appreciating how much you’re doing, how much it’s taking from you to go out there and fight these guys.. And then you come back…and the only person here when you come in out of it, is me.”

Steve frowned and rubbed her arm.

“I dunno…you’re pretty spectacular.” 

She let him go, and he half turned to look down at her. She looked uncharacteristically unhappy and was worrying at her bottom lip. 

“You still deserve more.” 

He might have said more, but she breathed deeply, and then seemed to bolster herself. 

She gestured for him to turn around again.

“Some of these are pretty deep, what happened?” 

He sighed, and winced when she swabbed at a gash with something that stung a bit. 

“We had a lead on Bucky, but it led us to this HYDRA group that was a little more organized. They had this machine thing that they sent after us. Almost took out one of Sam’s new wings, and it sliced through my Kevlar like it was warm butter.”

“Jesus. And you still didn’t find your friend?” 

He shook his head.

“No. The lead tapped out there, and it was our last one. Sam headed back to DC for a break, and I guess to spend Christmas with his family, but I came back here…Tony’s offered me JARVIS if I needed him.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“Thank you.” 

She worked a little while on his back in silence, and eventually it got to him, even with the music in the background playing a version of the Sugarplum Fairy that was a lot more amped up than he was used to. It was…good. Better than Tony’s idea of Christmas music. Tony had referred to it as ‘Twisted Sister’, and as far as Steve was concerned, twisted was definitely the word. 

“I like the music,” he commented. 

“Trans-Siberian Orchestra, man. It’s just not Christmas without it.”

“Is that why this place is just about deserted tonight? Christmas Eve?” 

“Yeah…Tony waltzed Pepper off to Bora Bora, or somewhere equally warm and exotic for the holidays. Jane took Thor to meet her mother, and as much as I am sure that will be an amusing scene, her mom’s place was too small when it wasn’t also being occupied by a six foot plus Norse god, and I’ve gotten used to having my space. Dr. Banner tried, but all the holiday cheer kind of got to him, and he bugged out somewhere quiet and crazy free.” 

“And I suppose that Nat and Barton are off doing what they do.” 

“With relish, I assume. So, yeah, it’s just me up here right now.” 

“What about your family?” He asked her, and to his immense surprise she snorted derisively. 

“My parents passed away while I was in college. I’m…kind of the black sheep. My sisters are stuck up snobs with rich husbands and pretentious houses. And neither of them have children, thank Thor. The kind of spawn either of them would produce would be privileged demons from hell.” 

Steve had no idea how to respond to that, so he settled for a noncommittal ‘Oh’. 

She paused in her ministrations, and he looked back to see her looking up at him. 

“My sisters are fifteen and eighteen years older than I am. I was a late in life surprise for my parents.” 

That clarified a little of her attitude.

“I’m sorry.” 

She shook her head and went back to what she was doing. 

“Unfortunately, we weren’t exactly close either. My mom wanted me to be a carbon copy of my sisters, which wasn’t going to happen, and my dad was a lawyer, he wasn’t around a lot. He had a heart attack, and my mom had had cancer for years, she just never told anyone because she was a stubborn ox. Turns out I had more in common with her than I thought. Either way, I have no desire to spend any amount of time in either of my sisters’ houses being set up with some rich, pretentious friend of their husbands’.”

“I can see how that might be irritating.” Steve said drily. He heard the grin in her next words.

“Yeah, I guess you can. Is Natasha still trying to set you up with half of the available women around here?” 

“When we’re both here at the same time, yes.”

“That must be annoying.”

“A little. I get that she’s only trying to help me out, but…”

“There are some things that need to be left alone.” 

“Yeah…” He said quietly. 

They were quiet for another few minutes, except for Darcy singing along to the song now playing. Her hands played over his back some, but he could tell that she was also nearly done.

“There…I think that’s got it. You got any more that I should look at?” 

There had been some gashes on his arms and chest, the ones on his chest were already mostly healed, but he dutifully turned and let her at the ones on his arms, watching her face as she worked. She was very focused, he knew that already. He’d seen her working before, one of the reasons that Pepper hired her to be her assistant was because she got the job done, by any means necessary. It was different when all of that terrifying focus was on him. 

“Okay. We’re done, just wait here a sec.” She packed up the kit quickly and then disappeared down the hall way again, returning a few moments later with a t shirt and a pair of flannel pants which she handed to him with a grin and a saucy wink. 

“Here, these should fit you, they’re Thor’s. The shirt I totally stole, but the pants are a laundry mishap.” 

Steve grinned as he tugged the shirt over his head. He excused himself to change into the pants. He could just as easily go to his own apartment, now that they were done. He hadn’t spent a lot of time there, but he knew that there were clothes there. For some reason though, he wasn’t keen on leaving her alone again on Christmas Eve.  
When he returned to the living room, the music had been turned off in favour of a movie that she had cued up and ready to play while she made popcorn in her kitchen. 

“What are you planning on watching?” He asked.

“White Christmas. Classic movie, and one of my all-time favourite Christmas Eve traditions. Stay and watch?” 

There was a hopeful glint in her eyes and he smiled at her.

“Sure, sounds great.” 

She grinned back, and took the bowl to the sofa with her.

“C’mon then, I’ve got a blanket with our names on it.”

 

* **

 

Steve woke slowly, noting that he was not in any room that he immediately recognized. He also noted that he was not sleeping in a bed, but rather on a large sofa. He blinked, and the sight of Darcy’s still lit Christmas tree came into focus and reminded him of where he was. If that hadn’t done it, Darcy sleeping in front of him, curled against him under their shared blanket. 

They must have fallen asleep watching movies. 

He was now presented with a problem. He hadn’t had a woman in his arms like this for a long time, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like. Almost. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten completely. All of her curves pressed up against him were entirely too enticing, if his current reaction to her was anything to go by. And he couldn’t move out from his position without waking her up. 

So of course, that would be when she woke up anyway.

“Mm…good morning.” She grinned sleepily at him and wriggled against him suggestively, whether intentionally or not, he wasn’t sure, but she hummed. “Definitely, good morning, huh?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be inappropriate.” 

“Hm.” She blinked slowly and shifted again, more deliberately. “I dunno, could be a nice Christmas present for both of us.” 

Her words were confident, but almost as soon as she said them, she tensed up. Steve focused on her face, and she was no longer sleepy, she was definitely alert, and definitely nervous again. She was biting at her lip again, and looking at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“I mean…ugh….I didn’t mean to say that….at least, not right now.”

“If not now…when?”

She let out a breath and pursed her lips. 

“I guess if I was going to make an ass out of myself I might as well do it at Christmas. I kind of like you, Steve. I like you a lot, and not just because of…well…”

“Captain America. You always call me Steve.” 

“Yeah…Captain America isn’t all that you are. So…if you are at all interested, just know that I’m here because it’s you, not because it’s Captain America.” 

“Okay.” 

She blinked and looked him straight in the eye.

“Okay?” 

“Yeah…” he palmed the curve of her hip in his hand and tugged her closer still. “I will admit that I’ve been wanting to get to know you better, Darcy…there’s just never been any time.” 

“Yeah? Good.” 

She pressed her lips to his then, and that tactic was a very effective way of stopping the conversation. 

Whatever Steve had thought about kissing Darcy Lewis before, the reality was far superior. He buried his hands in her hair and rolled her underneath him, nibbling at her lower lip until she opened for him. She responded enthusiastically, rolling her hips against his and arching up against him. 

“I can’t promise you much.” He said when they pulled apart to breathe. 

She ran a gentle hand over his cheek and smiled up at him, even as she curled a leg around his hip enticingly. 

“That’s okay. I can at least promise to be here whenever you come home.” 

“Merry Christmas, Darcy.”

“Merry Christmas, Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to mcgregorswench for organizing this, and also for being a fabulous beta!


End file.
